MLB Draft: Review of Dodgers 2014-17 first-year player assignments

Last Sunday, 2017 first-round pick outfielder Jeren Kendall talked to the media about his signing with the Dodgers and he said that at some point, he would be playing for the Great Lakes Loons in the Midwest League.

On the surface, that does not seem too unusual for a first-round pick to advance that much in his first year, but is it something that happens a lot?

What about current top position prospect, Alex Verdugo, who was drafted out of high school, where did he play in his first year?

To answer those questions, I went back and reviewed the first-year assignments for players drafted from 2014 through 2017. This first part will be about position players and tomorrow, the second part will be about pitchers.

I started with 2014 to compare how the prior development team did it and to see if the current development are doing anything different.

59 position players that were signed from those four drafts, including 42 from a four-year school, nine from a junior college program, and eight out of high school.

Kendall’s comments about playing in the Midwest League seem spot on. Of the 34 college position players that were drafted from 2014-2016, 17 played at one or both Class-A teams.

Contrast that with Alex Verdugo, who played most of his first season for the AZL Dodgers and then he went to the Pioneer League and played five games for the Raptors.

So far the only non-four year school player to play above AZL or Pioneer League is Willie Calhoun, who finished his first year with Rancho Cucamonga in the California League.

I also looked at playing time and I did not find any real pattern. Eighteen of the 46 position players had 200 or more plate appearances, and overall, 38 of those players had 100 or more plate appearances.

On the other hand, 2015 draft pick Edwin Rios played in just 22 games with 82 plate appearances in Rookie-level baseball but two years later, he is a prospect playing for Triple-A Oklahoma City.

One final thought: if you look at the below list, you’ll see that only four position players drafted and signed in 2014 are still playing for an MLB organization in 2017. And one of the four, Matt Jones, is now trying his lot as a pitcher for Ogden.

Tomorrow, I will take a look at the history of the pitchers that were drafted by the Dodgers in the last four years, will they be any different than position players? We’ll see.

** Note that the statistics and assignments for the 2017 drafted and signed position players are through July 11, 2017.

Thanks to Baseball-Reference.com for statistical resources